July 2007 - I Think, Therefore I Rant!

RANT! What is up with Live Earth – 2 of 2

By admin | July 27, 2007 | Comments 0 Comment

My last post on this subject was about rock stars not spending enough time on today’s problems but instead they are spending time on a theoretical problem for the future – global warming.

I realize that some stars like Bono have done a great job of trying to use his status to create awareness of issues that he cares about. That is awesome! More big personalities should do this.

So here are some small facts:

More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981. Africa has 12 million AIDS orphans. (source)
Every year 15 million children die of hunger. (source)
Up to 2.7M people die of malaria every year (source) which is incredibly preventable. (source and source)
More than 70% of all cancer deaths occur in low and middle income countries, where limited or no resources are available for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease. (source)

HEY ROCK STARS! HOW ABOUT GENERATING AWARENESS FOR KNOW PROBLEMS THAT CAN BE SOLVED TODAY?!?!?!

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Technorati Tags: global+warming, disease, rock+stars

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RANT! What is up with Live Earth – 1 of 2

By admin | July 17, 2007 | Comments 1 comment

The party is over. There were thousands of people in attendance and hundreds of people playing musical instruments. Supposedly, there were millions of people watching the show on TV but who really knows the correct number.

There was a lot of controversy, ranging from trash pickup to the lack of reality for the 90% reduction pledge. There was also some good music played so I am sure there will be a CD put out for the greatest hits (which will use more energy in creating).

Overall, I have a hard time with all of this attention. Yes, there does seem to be some validity to the argument that Earth is getting warmer but the science doesn’t seem to be conclusive that it is being caused by humans (check out Is It Getting Warmer for a bunch of articles on both sides of the subject – for and against).

However, there are a bunch of things today that we know will save lives v. a possible threat from global warming. There is no question that malaria kills thousands each year. AIDS is a virtual pandemic in Africa.

HEY ROCK STARS! SHOULDN’T WE TRY TO PREVENT PROBLEMS THAT HAVE A SOLUTION TODAY?!?!?!

RANT! – The Israeli / Palestinian problem – 4 of 4

By admin | July 15, 2007 | Comments 2 comments

It hasn’t gotten any better since the vicious greed and land grabbing of the mid 20th century. People are fighting and dying over power and greed. This isn’t about ethnic homelands as neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis have had a continuous control over these lands for centuries.

People in this region need to work together and understand that everyone needs a place to live and raise their families. They want to be close to their cousins to celebrate important dates. Laws need to be fair that no one is persecuted because of what they worship. Their should be no need to kick someone out of their family farm just because they are on the wrong side of some line drawn by some politician. Who cares!

The real root of this problem is that Jews felt that they could no longer afford to live in Europe. Once again, this is an unfortunate act of hatred of someone that is different than you. I suggest that Jews do not repeat that hatred to others.

HEY MIDEAST (INCLUDING ISRAEL) – LIVE AND LET LIVE!!

I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.

More reading on this subject:
RANT! – The Israeli / Palestinian problem – 1 of 4
RANT! – The Israeli / Palestinian problem – 2 of 4
RANT! – The Israeli / Palestinian problem – 3 of 4

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestine

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RANT! – The Israeli / Palestinian problem – 3 of 4

By admin | July 8, 2007 | Comments 2 comments

After the UN partitioned a homeland for the Palestinians and Israel (a plan that the majority of Jews agreed to but some warned that they would be attacked), their neighbors went on a land grab. Almost immediately on the creation of the state of Israel, approximately 21,000 soldiers from 4 different countries invaded Israel with their stated goal of eliminating the new country that was officially only days old. Before long they had about 3 times that many troops.

In the process of attacking, these invading countries essentially occupied all of the new Palestinian state and used that advantage to attack Israel. They essentially destroyed Palestine and controlled the land from their respective countries.

Israel, as a new sovereign nation, had a right to protect itself. It successfully defended itself and in the process repelled its attackers from adjoining land, which essentially meant repelling the the invading army from Palestine.

In reality, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt wiped out Palestine in their efforts to wipe out Israel. Israel did not destroy Palestine (although it didn’t put the lines back where they used to be).

HEY LEBANON, SYRIA, IRAQ, AND EGYPT – THIS IS YOUR FAULT!

RANT! – The Israeli / Palestinian problem – 2 of 4

By admin | July 5, 2007 | Comments 0 Comment

The United Kingdom and the US (to a much lesser degree) are actually the good guys in the entire Palestinian homeland issue, so the world should give them a collective break.

If you look at history, UK (and a few friends) beat the snot out of the Ottoman’s in WW1. They then broke up this massive land that was under Ottoman rule into states (basically the ones that exist today). Palestine was one of those states, as was Israel. Hurray for UK! Don’t believe me – see the map.

Unfortunately, Nazi Germany was not being nice to their Jewish citizens at that time (as were other nations in Europe). This was driving these relatively affluent and well educated Jews to the land that their forefathers occupied centuries ago – the land between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea – what is now Israel. The inhabitants there (Palestinians) didn’t like the Jews either since they were rich, well educated, and were quickly taking over by buying everything. So they started fighting with the new immigrants (wow – this is a recurring theme – natives fighting with immigrants). Understand that at this time, Jews weren’t “taking” anything from the Palestinians – they were buying or building their homes and businesses.

So the real problem in Palestine is the lack of allowing immigrants from other religions and ethnic backgrounds to prosper and live in peace.

WHY CAN’T EVERYONE JUST LIVE AND LET LIVE?

RANT! – The Israeli / Palestinian problem – 1 of 4

By admin | July 2, 2007 | Comments 3 comments

It is interesting that the Israeli – Palestinian problem has achieved such notoriety and in particular that the Israeli state, the United States, and UK have taken such enormous blame over the entire issue. The proposed Palestinian state has as much right to exist as the state of Israel but it is not Israel’s fault that the Palestinian’s have no homeland …

IT IS THE UNITED KINGDOM’S FAULT!
(with a helping from Nazi Germany and others as we will see as I post more on this subject)

Actually the fault truly lies with the Ottoman empire as they were the most recent to occupy the territory (I won’t blame the Greeks and the Romans). The supposed homeland to Palestinians and Jews wasn’t their homeland for hundreds of years – it was under Ottoman rule. So all of the complaining about a homeland is really a little immature – they were both out of power for a massive amount of time (in fact, the Israel nation was gone many centuries ago).

Month: July 2007